GET MORE LOVE IN YOUR LIFE
When Poorna Bell lost her husband, it made her understand that life is filled with many different kinds of love. Here, she reveals 11 ways to find and amplify them
Ways to find and amplify it
I’ll spare you the teenage angst and give you the Cliffsnotes version of my old diaries. All I ever wanted was to find a big, romantic love. Like so many of us reared on Disney and Hollywood romcoms, I believed it would fulfil me, transform me into a better version of myself, eat my sadness whole. I never lost hope that I’d find this love. Eventually, he arrived and his name was Rob. He didn’t look like the man I imagined I’d fall in love with – he was a Kiwi skinhead journalist who loved gardening, birds and punk rock. Then again, love doesn’t operate to a checklist, and it isn’t forged in the narrow corridors of what a person wears, or what music they like. It’s about how they make you feel, and it’s a feeling of being limitless with each other.
But the thing they don’t tell you about big love is that it doesn’t give you an automatic pass to a happy ending. Three years ago, Rob passed away by suicide, after struggling with depression and addiction for a long time. Beyond mourning him, there were some hard things to come to terms with. The hardest of which was: can I ever love someone as much as I loved him? And: will I ever be happy again, if I don't?
It would be hypocritical to say romantic love, when it works, isn’t one of the most sublime, fulfilling experiences there is. However, death has made me understand that a person’s lifetime is filled with love of so many different kinds. How do I know that? Because, when I lost Rob, it was all the other loves in my life that saved me from the darkest point in my existence.
Eventually, this grief distilled into understanding.
I’d always remember and mourn the love I shared with Rob, but in the same stroke, I had a new appreciation for all the other relationships in my life.
We live in a society that prioritises romantic happiness above all others. But just as there is more than one path to happiness, there is more than one path to love. There is an immense amount of it to be had in your life, if you are willing to try. This is what I learnt…
1 The oldest relationship we have is with our parents, which is why most of us are on autopilot with them. We never had to impress or coax them into loving us. If you’re lucky, it was unconditional from the start. In return, we give them the worst kind of love: we make no effort and expect them to be grateful and dazzled by our presence.
Invest nothing, and you’ll get nothing. Invest something – a short walk, is incredible. a lunch I date remember – and the my return mother saying about her own mother’s passing: ‘I had so many questions to ask her, and I never got round to it.’ I didn’t want that to happen to us.
My mum and I worked hard and built a solid friendship – now she’s my go-to for advice or when I need someone to make me laugh. Spending time with a parent amplifies the bond you once had until it becomes a source of strength. 2 Self-love isn’t just giving yourself a weekend permission bingeing to on spend pastries and Netflix. It’s about asking yourself hard questions about what you want in your life and then following through. It’s lancing the boil of toxic relationships. It’s asking you to place your self-esteem on a weighing scale so that you can figure out why you keep making the same mistakes. Self-love really is self-awareness met with the capacity for change. Once you start doing it, you’re earthquake-proofing your life.
3 Social media love is not actual love, it has the emotional nutritional value of candyfloss.
4 There is great value in reconnecting with older friends. It can be hard as these are the people we often least keep in touch with. But they are the historians of your life. Send them a note starting: ‘Remember when…’ and the warmth of that love flows through is like no time has passed.
5 Love is connection: buy the silliest card you can find and send it to a friend.
6 Kindness is two types of love. It’s self-love, but it’s also love to the world. Whether it’s buying a mate a coffee they didn’t ask for, or helping someone carry a pram, the ripples of that loving act move outwards and eventually make it back to you.
7 Love – both for lovers and friends – isn’t smooth and shiny. A real love has scars. There are cracks along the building but it’s still standing. Some people are so scared by this, they’d rather walk away from a friendship than risk their heart. But you’d be surprised at how resilient it can be.
8 When someone upsets you or makes you angry, most of the time their motivation is love. Understanding that gives you power to be bigger than your anger.
9 Rob had an ethos called the ‘Big Family’, which meant if you were in a new country, alone, and he knew someone there, he’d arrange for them to meet you for a meal. Then, you’d do the same for someone else who’d come to your country. A simple act of kindness that could be passed on.
10 Every single love has its own shape, colour and history. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do with yours when they have no idea of what your heart has been through.
11 Love is your heart going into battle over and over again.
If it survived once, it can do it a thousand times more.